Prof Harriet Evans

Prof Harriet Evans


Professor Harriet Evans was educated at the University of London's School of African and Oriental Studies, the University of British Colombia, the Beijing Languages Institute, and Beijing University.

She taught modern Chinese history in Mexico between 1979 and 1984. Formerly Head of the University of Westminster's Chinese Section, she coordinated the University's Asian Studies between 2000 and 2010, including the MA and MPhil/PhD programmes in Contemporary Chinese Cultural Studies and International Studies.

Her main publications include Women and Sexuality in China: Discourses of Female Sexuality and Gender since 1949 (Polity Press, 1997), and Picturing Power in the People's Republic of China: Posters of the Cultural Revolution (co-edited with Stephanie Donald, Rowman and Littlefield, 1999); The Subject of Gender: Daughters and Mothers in Urban China (Rowman and Littlefield, 2007).

She has contributed many articles to leading journals and edited volumes, and is a regular consultant for non-governmental agencies on women, gender and human rights in China.

She was President of the British Association for Chinese Studies (2002-5), has served on the Executive Committee of the Universities' China Committee in London, and is  member of the Executive Committee of The China Quarterly. She was appointed Professor Emerita in March 2017;  is Chair of Trustees to the London-based NGO, The Rights Practice, and is Visiting Professor in Anthropology at the LSE.


Current Research Projects

Dashilanr: an oral history of everyday life in south Beijing

Posters of the Cultural Revolution: Contemporary Chinese perspectives on an era of propaganda

Professor Evans is also a workshop organizer participating in a project coordinated by the Anthropology Department, London school of Economics, on The Transmission and Recognition of Grievous Loss.


  • Contemporary China Centre
  • Institute for Modern and Contemporary Culture